It is not uncommon for a manufacturer to hype up their next product, after all their very existence depends on how successful they are at selling their products. So whenever the next “latest and greatest” is coming our way we are deluged with marketing information about how X product is 25% faster than Y product. Rarely though do we get any hard evidence of the performance until a couple of weeks before NDA's expire.

Intel have handled this product launch differently because as well as the usual splattering of marketing mumbo jumbo there has been an uncharacteristic level of access to an unreleased product.

 

The first major example of this was back in May when we were invited to Intel Headquarters in Germany and were able to get hands on with a pre configured Core 2 system, a full two months before retail availability. Initial impressions were very positive however there is only so much faith you can have in pre-configured systems with limited testing, many sites published “their” results which basically were nothing more than glorified Intel PDF’s, we choose to wait until we could build our own systems and do our own indepth testing.

Over a month before Core 2 reviews could be published we were sent a final review kit by Intel. This almost never happens, most launches are shrouded in secrecy and last minute rushes, having over a month to fully test a new product really gives the impression that Intel are confident in their new line of processors, time to find out if this faith is well placed.

Core 2 Extreme X6800

Located above is the CPUz screenshot which gives all the basic information on Intel's top of the range CPU. The Core 2 Extreme is clocked at 2.93 GHz and runs on a 1066 MHz FSB. The multiplier used to achieve this is 11x. The CPU is manufactured on the 65nm process and features 4mb of level 2 cache. As with all currently available Core 2 processors the Extreme supports Intel's Virtualisation Technology, however unlike previous high end CPU's from Intel there is no support for hyper threading. This is of course a dual core CPU and the transistor count is 291m (within 142mm2). This is a substantial reduction over the Pentium 900 series (376m transistors) which previously lead Intel's high performance segment. The die size is also significantly smaller than AMD's X2 CPU's due to the manufacturing process (90nm v 65nm).

In the above shot you can see the Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU, as the product is designed to work on the Socket 775 platform the design from the top is identical to any recent Intel processor.

Flipping the X6800 over shows that the underside is also very familiar looking. Here are the full CPU specs are listed by Intel:

Core 2 Duo E6700

The Core 2 Duo CPU is similar to the Extreme in almost every way. It features use of the same FSB, same cache volume, same transistor count and manufacturing process and only the use of a 10x multiplier giving a speed of 2.66Ghz differentiates it from the Extreme edition. In fact other than the writing on the heat sink it is impossible to tell the difference between each CPU just by looking at it.

In the above shot you can see the Core 2 Duo E6700, again as the product is designed to work on the Socket 775 platform the design from the top is identical to any recent Intel processor.

So what's the difference – Core 2 Duo > Core 2 Extreme

As noted above there is a small clock speed difference between the two products, there is also one significant feature for the enthusiast market. Whereas previous Extreme CPU's came with increased cache or HT the Core 2 Extreme comes with a very useful feature – an unlocked multiplier. If the Extreme processor is to be over clocked the unlocked multiplier opens up huge performance tweaking options. That said, there is a huge price difference between the 2.93 and 2.66 GHz models and if you aren’t a hard core overclocker it would be hard to justify the extra expense.

Here is a small table which gives some information on how the Core 2 Duo CPU's compare to the Extreme.

Comparisons with historic Intel CPU's can also be seen at the following link